2019 RETA Breeze Jul-Aug

SERVICE

The Shade Tree Mechanic volume XLIII

Colorful Balls Well today was a good day, I finally got colorful balls, well one colorful ball, but it was still a good day. I had a relief valve that was leaking. Not constantly, but just enough to eat my relief main sensor. Annoying as **ll. The relief valve would open and release ammonia to the header, but just a little. Not quite enough to set off the sensor, but enough to cause my ammonia detector to fail over time. Finally, I had ta replace it. I have 23 relief valves on the main, 5 singles, and 9 duels. My first thought was to cycle all the 3-ways and hope it went away. Unfortunately, that would

solve the sensor issue, but I wouldn’t be able to find the leaking valve. My contractor suggested I install rupture disks at each valve. Very expensive! So, I called my buddy and asked him what he would do. He surprised me, “Get some cotton balls,” he said. I asks “what the heck am I going to do with them?” He proceeded to tell me that he wrote an article on this for The Breeze several years ago. Well I didn’t remember it so I told him to tell me again. He suggested opening the union in the outlet of each relief and putting a wet cotton ball in the pipe, then closing the union again. So, I did it. Here’s how it works. A small amount of ammonia will be absorbed by the cotton ball and the cotton ball will turn blue.

So, we left the cotton balls in for 3 days and opened the unions up and checked. Sure enough, one of the balls was blue. I had found my leaking relief. He gave me some more advice. “If you open the union and the relief valve is gone, then it’s a sign that the valve opened with force and blew the cotton ball down the main.” Wow old school trouble shooting from under the Shade Tree. Thanks for the advice…again. The shade tree grows outside of the little town of Broughton, Ohio. Where everyone is always welcome, the beer is always cold, and something is always needin fixin.

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